Wireless Data Networking Via Light

Siemens scientists are working with the Heinrich Hertz Institute the Visible Light Communication (VLC) project. VLC uses white-light-emitting diode (LED) technology to transmit data at 500 Mbits per second over 5 meters. “This is much faster than other VLC work using this type of LED by a long shot,” said Dominic O’Brien, an engineering science researcher at the University of Oxford. This beats the previous record of 200 Mbps set by the same group and is much faster than current Wi-Fi technologies, which operate at speeds up to 150 Mbps with 802.11n.